Poem #28: Moon Over Garage

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There's a full moon over the garage.
Happens this time of year.
Four months ago it was Orion, the lout,
with his stinking winter pelt
and bloody club.
Only too happy to see him fade in the West
and leave the sky open
for this fume-y disk, which tonight shows
either the face of an old man
or a rabbit running a treadmill,
depending on your eye or culture.
I'm happy to see either,
welcome for the change of face again,
happy to have this morose orb back
(the moon is only happy when you rhyme her with June).
You can stay over my garage all night, I tell her;
tho your heart is fickle, and will
eventually invite
Orion back--
that's months away.
I'll wait until you next appear full
before I bring out the basil seeds
to plant them in your light,
cursing at each one as the Roman did*.
Tonight, I'll just enjoy
your bare illumination
through my open window.

[Note: The ancient Romans were said to plant basil seeds only at night during a full moon, and curse at each seed as they planted them in order to ensure a large harvest.)
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Poem #27: Don't Tell My Neighbors

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An email this morning from the neighborhood association;
sixteen unlocked cars robbed last night.
Two cops tracked down one of the kids.
One accomplice remains at large.
None of the loot has been found.
I put on some clothes and checked my car.
No theft, but I check the premises;
I've found empty purses stuffed in my bushes before,
vacant wallets, scattered small change,
even a Carhartt jacket, almost new,
crammed behind the fence.
I kept the jacket.
Don't tell my neighbors.
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Poem #26: Going Somewhere Else

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What are you doing up there,
she asks, why aren't you down here?
Oh, I'm trying to write, I say.
But I don't mention
sitting by the open window,
listening for the freight train,
going somewhere else.
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Poem #25: Zack at the Door

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Zack drops by every day this week.
He doesn't mention it,
but a 14-year-old dropping by, asking for yard work
on a weekday morning in April
must have been suspended from school. Again.
Again I tell him to come back on the weekend,
I'm busy, I have no money, and
no I don't have any cigs
(I lie).
But he's cool with that.
He's a scrawny, snaggle-toothed punk,
and by punk I mean
he's into skateboards and the Ramones;
says he lives with his dad and grandpa.
they used to live in the neighborhood,
but were evicted from their rental
two weeks ago, and are now holed up
in some flea-bag motel on the west side of town.
He walks the four miles to my neighborhood
because there's more homeowners, like me,
for whom he's done work the past year,
and every now and then he can still be handed
a rake or shovel or broom or mower
to do some yard work for a couple of hours.
He grins his set of cartoon teeth
and says "Hey, no problem, I'll be back!"
And he will, and he'll work, too.
Even this anarchist-punk junior high dropout
embraces a work ethic I admire.
It's me that's a slacker,
wanting to get another hour of sleep in this weekend
while I hear him rake the front garden.
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Poem #24: Tyrannosaurus Sex

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Back in the late Cretaceous period,
Tyrannosaurus had their own Vegas in Utah.
Every day was a gamble, but T. Rex
usually ran the table, the food was free, and
the views were much better.
T. Rex was the Pit Boss,
and so what if their sex
was loud and awkward?
What happened in Utah
stayed in Utah.
The Mormons would change all that,
of course,
but only after
the late Cretaceous period
was a petrified stain.
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Poem #23: Four Senryu

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Crock full of wooden spoons;
I can stir things up
as long as they're not on fire.
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Radio on all night.
Fervid pundits put me to sleep,
but I wake to a light rain.
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She insisted she was chaste,
but the ethics of her perfume said
leather, smoke, bruised lilac.
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The oxygen machine has
a 30-foot hose.
Beyond that, you're in your own atmosphere.
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Poem #22: Tree, Car, Tree

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Catkins from the hop-hornbeam tree
cover the car like green worms.
I just had it washed
[the car, not the tree]..
But inside
[the car, not the tree],
it still smells of lemons
and scrubbed vinyl.
But even at this time, especially at this time,
I enjoy sitting under it
[the tree, not the car].
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Poem #21: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

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Today it's a selection from her pharmaecopia
in the basket next to the couch,
as usual,
supplemented with a nutrition drink
and strawberries or a banana,
then a shot of Forteo* in her thigh.
Ice water needs replenishing;
a vodka and tonic later.
Maybe yesterday's vegetable soup
warmed up for lunch.
Dinner has yet to be planned;
perhaps an omelette with cheese and onions,
a slice of toast with light jam
and another vodka and tonic.
I'll try to sneak a small salad in.
When things are bad, it's only
bechamel sauce with chopped,
hard-boiled eggs over toast. Or Mac and cheese.
O, how I long for a dining room table again,
and meals someone else can cook.
Turn on the television;
I'll put the plate in your lap,
and tuck the napkin under your chin.
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[Footnote: Forteo is a brand name of teriparatide, a drug to counteract osteoporosis]

Poem #20: A Rant

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I keep getting his e-mails.
Vile stuff, often.
Jokes about this race, that race,
internet-propagated lies about people
he considers traitors, Photoshopped photos
proving the poor are simply leeches,
turgid prose wrapped in stars and stripes
and hate and bunting and lines from the Constitution,
treated like quotes from holy script.
He wants his country back, and he lives
on a nice pension,
with a nice wife,
in a nice country half the world away
for half the year.
An old friend, really.
I welcomed him as I ever have,
the last time I saw him.
We didn't talk politics.
The arthritis hasn't let up on him,
deep and progressing,
but he still gets around, is still able to use a computer.
But his last e-mail, a forwarded joke--
sent who knows how many times,
equating mongrel dogs with mixed-race children,
and how the guy applies for welfare for his dogs--
that finally crossed the line.
I thought about sending him a joke, a little joke,
just something light and funny
about stupid, lame, arthritic gimps
who suck at my taxes for medical treatment
from a nice apartment 8,750 miles from the U.S.
I decided against it.
I live with a gimp
and she's pissed at him, too.
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Poem #19: Sam Spade in the 21st Century

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I'm in my office late that night,
and as I'm watching the night settle over
my sordid, two-bit city, I get a call;
It's a lady in trouble.
what's the problem, ma'am?
Can you help? I have a virus
says she, a breathy voice on the other end.
Lady, this ain't no hospital, I answer,
but she's persistent.
No, a computer virus. I'm scared to even
touch the keyboard, and I have
poems to finish for my reading tomorrow,
o please help!
Calm down lady, says I, just
give me your address,
pour me a double shot and
I'll be there in five minutes.
It's only 10:30 in the evening
as I hang up.
The night is young
and a lady's in trouble.
I grab my hat,
check to make sure I've got smokes,
and say to myself
as I head off down the hall:
Man, I love this job.
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Poem #18: You Told Me About the Birds

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Brother calls again from Cleveland,
fifth time in three days;
he's always calling now,
since his last hospitalization,
since he said he stopped drinking,
since he does not speak to
anyone else in the family.
Again with news of the U of M,
his old alma mater, and what he plans to gift;
again with the story of
Ms. Brown, his neighbor, and her snorting pug;
again with the mention of how much
his paperweights are worth
and what to do with them
when his will kicks in, when
he kicks it.
His speech stumbles over the phone.
I can hear his voice echo in his empty apartment,
most of what he had stolen by the movers--
he must have pissed them off royally.
"Did I tell you I was feeding the birds
so's they'd stick around and eat the mosquitos?"
Yes, I say again,
you told me about the birds.
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Poem #17: Old Man Blank Page

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I've been pouring over a blank page,
staring at it for hours;
sometimes writing and rewriting the same line,
or erasing the whole thing
and going back to the blank page.
I think, instead,
I'll just watch "Show Boat" on the tube instead
and perhaps some simile will come--
like a blank page and the Mississippi.
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Poem #16: Just Sitting Upstairs

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I'm just sitting upstairs
and waiting for her voice.
More water, or help moving
from bed to couch, couch to bed.
In the morning, I help sort her pills,
put her socks on,
check the calendar for the next
doctor appointment.
In the evening, I turn on
the oxygen machine,
help her with the tube,
then I go to bed.
I am struggling
to find the poetry in this,
though I know it 's there somewhere.
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Poem #15: April 15th

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Render unto Caesar he said,
and that's what I did most of the day,
figuring out how much I am required to render.
And then, after I posted the 1040,
I rendered unto another authority
and fed the sentient beings in my house
who cannot feed themselves.
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Poem #14: Measuring Sanctuary

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here I gather
and here I let go
here I plant
and here I sow
here I turn the soil of self
and here I measure
its weight and heft.
Measuring sanctuary
is best done alone.
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Poem #13: Mussin' Up the Muse

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I want to push my muse up against the wall.
Slowly.
I want to run my hand up her toga,
stroking her tanned Greek leg
(unshaven)
and as I press myself to her
whisper in her ear,
"Give me the poem, you Aegean tart."
She'll give a low grunt,
grab my crotch, grin and whisper back
"You can't handle Aegean,
you Midwestern hick,
but touch me there again,
and I'll show you a real ocean."
And I'll touch her once more
and answer
"I'd ride that tide
all the way out."
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Poem #12: Three Professions

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I loved being a professional wrestler.
The smell of the popcorn and cheesewiz crowd,
the bite of the top rope,
smackin' that night's face into the canvass.
I was always the heel. And I loved it.

I loved being a professional synchronized swimmer,
the smell of clorine, the bright florescent lights,
the water over all of us as we met
underwater and rose to the surface.
I was often late in my position, but I loved it.

I loved being a republican senator.
The power, the money, the privilege,
having my rants published in the Congressional Record,
having bar bills paid by lobbyists.
I testified that I was never in her bed. But I would have loved to.

[This poem was suggested by a friend, who asked that I work  "syncronized swimmers" into a poem. Apologies to wrestlers and synchronized swimmers]
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Poem #11: Despot in The Garden

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I'm an enlightened despot in the garden--
no one has a vote, but I know what's good for them.
This gets chopped down, that gets fertilized.
Shovel and mattock, shears and trowel:
these are the tools of my dictatorship,
which I wield for the common good.
But when my back is turned, I can hear
all the perennials laughing.
Long after you're gone we'll still be here, they say;
pushing up, pushing up.
And waiting in anticipation
for the next despot.
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Poem #10: The Intentional Flaw

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The Native American beadwork
contains one flaw,
a different color, a spirit bead,
as the Great Spirit will not enter
a perfect work.
Perfection versus the intentional flaw.

Persian rugs, a Japanese vase,
the quilt from a farm in Missouri;
each with their intentional flaw,
each filled with something larger,
each an invitation:
take this flawed object
and fill it with yourself.
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Poem #9A: Three Recent Fragments, Late at Night

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Muse wakes me at 3:42 a.m.
with coffee and a truncheon;
she drinks the coffee
while whacking me on the feet.
"Wake up you lazy fuck. Get writing."
I try to explain that it wasn't me, it was someone else,
anyone else, I wasn't there at the time.
"Don't insult my intelligence," says she.
"You were there, and you're going to tell me
everything you know."
This time, I think, she means business.

+++++++++

I will turn this room
until the window
still catches the moon.

+++++++++

The dog keeps speaking about
the party two blocks away.
Even he wants them
to turn that shit off.
He'd call the cops if he could.
I hand him the phone, go back to sleep.
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Poem #9: Late Night on the Computer

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two o'clock in the morning.
staring at the Web.
what am i supposed to write about?
...
time for a cold shower.
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Poem #8: Not On This Head

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I'm having a bad hair day:
somewhere between Don King and
Albert Einstein.
If I let it keep growing
perhaps no one will notice
the slowly balding spot on top;
or perhaps I'll end up looking like
a 9th century Irish monk.
The pony tail of my youth
seems almost impossible now.
Hats, always appealing, now have
even more significance.
I stare at the razor next to the sink.
No. Not yet. Not to this head.
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Poem #7: Questions My Dog Asks

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The dog and I are locked in the little TV room,
and he's trying to tell me
THERE'S SOMEONE MAKING A HORRIBLE NOISE IN THE LIVING ROOM
That's Patti the cleaning lady, I try to tell him.
She's filling a bag she has in that machine
with about a pound of the hair you've shed since December.
BUT THERE'S SOMEONE IN THE LIVING ROOM
I know, I try to tell him, it's OK,
we're not in any danger, I won't let her
vacuum you, and he looks at me
with even more concern and tries to ask me
THAT THING WHAT IS THAT THING MAKING ALL THE NOISE
and I remind myself
that I if I made this noise myself
a little more often
I wouldn't now be spending
most of my morning locked in a small room
with an agitated dog
asking so many questions.
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Poem #6: All Over Again

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sleep is desirable.
After a day of errands, cooking and heavy rain,
sleeping to the sound of water moving
is desirable.
Tired of sink and stove;
tired of trash that needs taking out.
Tired of faulty cars, empty accounts;
tired of managing, tired of
maintaining.
Just some sleep by the open window,
the sound of the river a block away,
and tomorrow when I wake
I can do this
all over again.
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Poem #5: The Last Refrigerator

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The summer before i turned 17
I worked for two weeks delivering
washers, dryers and refrigerators .
I wasn't built for moving appliances,
and two weeks was all I needed of that job,
but that last delivery--
some cul-de-sac in Sterling Heights,
a one-story brick ranch, like every
one-story brick ranch on the street, and
a brand-new fridge-freezer, side-by-side model.
In off-white.
Anyway my partner and I knocked on the door
and I noticed that all the flowers outside are plastic.
The door opened to the sound of Lara's Theme
and a large woman in housecoat
"You're late," she said, and shows us in;
we have to take the old fridge out,
and on our way to the kitchen
we pass the plastic-covered living room
everything hermetically sealed,
like it was a museum, the whole house
covered in some sort of plastic film,
even the big console hi-fi, which is playing
a selection of hits from the Vienna Boys' Choir,
and in the spotless kitchen:
every appliance ever designed by Ron Popeil--
even the Chop-O-Matic--
And the lady of the house is looking over the new fridge
while her husband, frets behind her
and she's going "no, no look--there's a scratch!, Right there!"
and he's whining "No, honey, that's not a scratch,
you don't have to send it back, please, honey,
not again, let's just keep it, OK?"
and just then the kid, maybe little Junior, the only child,
steps out from a bedroom down the hall.
It was his eyes that got me: that 1,000 yard stare,
like we weren't there, the new fridge wasn't there,
his parents weren't there. He just walked right past us
to the living room, and we heard the needle
scratch across the whole album
of the biggest hits of the Vienna Boys' Choir
and the kid walked back past us slowly, back to his bedroom
while Mom and Dad acted like nothing's happened,
they're still arguing about whether
there's a scratch on the fridge
and I think to myself
these people will be murdered in their sleep
by a 14-year-old wielding a Ronco appliance.
We left them with the new fridge,
and I quit that job two days later.
I never did like Sterling Heights.
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Poem #4: First Cast on Delicate Water

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If, as Zen teaches, the rain falls on all,
he could not bear to leave it to
gunfire from the morons who seem to forget
to arrange them into two quatrains. Next, try to imagine
that this late in the year,

directly facing the elements, there is a gap below.
Aladdin found himself under the window
full of drawings and small sculptures that
often contain an observation, a snapshot, of nature.
I have an FM radio, and the car gets good

practice of meditation, which gives
affection. After some general conversation,
the Swedish decor is comforting, all red paneling.
There is no rule against including any number of feet;
For those who assume angling is

one that wards the danger off, how do we assume
the consternation of the vizier was extreme?
"What happened next?" I asked him.
Many poets have said, often ruefully, that
you have a problem making a first cast on delicate water.

[NOTE: this is a variation on French surrealist Andre Breton's 'Exquisite Corpse' technique. Here, I've chosen one line at random from five published works, also chosen at random, to complete a stanza, and repeated the process. The works used include, in order:
- "Awake and Demented", by Noelle Oxenhandler, published in Fall 2008 issue of Tricycle
- "Arabian Nights' Entertainments", translator unknown, publication circa 1890
- "The Time Traveler's Wife", by Audrey Niffennegger
- "Poetry as Spiritual Practice", by Robert McDowell
- "An Outside Chance: Classic & New Essays on Sport", by Thomas McGuane

"Words make love with one another." - A. Breton]
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Poem #3: What Gets Lost to Hope

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It's about time for rain;
three days into April
and everything was dry from early heat.
But all the potted plants
are out of the house
after six months of household dust
and dry heat;
christmas cactus and hoya vine,
saguro cactus and even the orchids,
spindly orchids that haven't bloomed
for two years.
I watch the weather forecast;
it's still too early to trust
this Michigan spring.
Too much gets lost to hope
in early heat.
It's April,
and too much is lost
unless you're prepared
to pull it all in--
no matter how much hope
you display
on Easter Sunday.
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Poem # 2: Three Senryu, One Haiku

shredding old bank statements
I still know
where the money went

++++

dog licks my feet
with fervor;
they're his drug of choice

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a loud whine
wakes everyone on the block;
sound of alternator dying

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last night's glass of wine
left by the open window;
pollen floats on top

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In case anyone is wondering where the title of this blog comes from:

"Don’t use such an expression as 'dim lands of peace.' It dulls the image. It mixes an abstraction with the concrete. It comes from the writer’s not realizing that the natural object is always the adequate symbol."
-Ezra Pound, from A Retrospect

Poem #1: What This Poem Is Not

This writer would like to get a few things straight,
right off the bat, about this first poem, this
first poem of a month of poems.

This is not an exercise in strained rhyme.
No holiday will be mentioned, with its attendant emotional baggage to build on.
No pets, alive or dead, will appear, as a metaphor for attachment,
loss or impermanence.
No shaking of a fist at the government, television news,
the current state of pop music or the weather.

No moon will slowly rise over the third stanza, imparting an image of cold loneliness.
No reference will be made to specific movies released in the 1930s,
or quotes from their dialogue used.

No names of famous personages will be dropped, or picked up.
No essential secret about the meaning of life will be divulged,
as the writer really never had any in the first place.

All the writer wants to do for this first poem
is to describe how he's looking out his second-floor window;
the neighbors are having their first garage sale
and already people are picking through boxes of shoes, children's clothes,
bad art and mismatched coffee cups.
But I am taking my time with my own coffee, in my own mismatched cup--
not to rummage through what others no longer need,
but to instead clear away the dead
(there, I've used the word)
from last year's garden, and make room
for those rising from the ground
(and there is a holiday reference, which snuck in)
All I want to do is clear my garden.
The rest, dear reader, is for you to figure out.